Group items tagged

Here, based simplified, are the chemical reactions in the atmosphere, which explain how the Fukushima disaster impacted the Arctic ozone hole.   The cold winter in 2010-2011 produced dense stratospheric clouds over the Arctic, which due to the presence of water promoted chemical reactions with various gases to produce compounds that deplete ozone over the Arctic Circle.   The Arctic ozone hole, that began expanding due to the clouds, radically widened in March and April, coinciding with the Fukushima disaster.

"Our results show that Arctic ozone holes are possible even with temperatures much milder than those in the Antarctic," it also said.   It is harder for ozone-destroying chlorine monoxide to form in the stratosphere of the Arctic as winter temperatures are higher than in the Antarctic, according to the group.   But the depletion of the ozone layer over the Arctic appears to have progressed greatly this winter to spring because unusually cold temperatures from December through the end of March enhanced ozone-destroying forms of chlorine.   "The 2010-11 Arctic winter-spring was characterized by an anomalously strong stratospheric polar vortex and an atypically long continuously cold period," the team said in the article contributed to Nature.

From the Mainichi newspaper...   Researchers Report Unprecedented Ozone Loss In Arctic   10-3-11   TSUKUBA, Japan (Kyodo) -- The depletion of the Arctic ozone layer reached an unprecedented level in early 2011 and was "comparable to that in the Antarctic," an international research team said Sunday in the online version of the British science magazine Nature.   "For the first time, sufficient loss occurred to reasonably be described as an Arctic ozone hole," said the nine-country team, including Hideaki Nakajima of the National Institute for Environmental Studies in Tsukuba in Ibaraki Prefecture.

Enormous quantities of decommissioned Russian nuclear reactors and radioactive waste were dumped into the Kara Sea in the Arctic Ocean north of Siberia over a course of decades, according to documents given to Norwegian officials by Russian authorities and published in Norwegian media.

Bellona is alarmed by the extent of the dumped Soviet waste, which is far greater than was previously known – not only to Bellona, but also to the Russian authorities themselves.

The catalogue of waste dumped at sea by the Soviets, according to documents seen by Bellona, and which were today released by the Norwegian daily Aftenposten, includes some 17,000 containers of radioactive waste, 19 ships containing radioactive waste, 14 nuclear reactors, including five that still contain spent nuclear fuel; 735 other pieces of radiactively contaminated heavy machinery, and the K-27 nuclear submarine with its two reactors loaded with nuclear fuel.

The University of Alaska Fairbanks' Institute of Marine Sciences is launching an investigation into whether radiation, including possibly from the Fukoshima Daiichi nuclear power-plant disaster in Japan, has harmed or killed more than 100 ringed seals off Alaska's coasts. More than 60 dead and 75 diseased seals have shown up mostly on Alaska's Arctic beaches since this July, with symptoms that include oozing skin sores, patchy hair loss and damaged organs, prompting a wide-ranging investigation into the mysterious cause of their illness. Scientists are considering several possible causes. But much of the effort has been geared toward finding the bacteria or virus that's causing the apparently unprecedented symptoms, with labs nationally and in other countries examining tissue from ringed seals and Alaska walrus, which appear to be suffering the same affliction.

The work so far has yielded at least one important clue: "Tests indicate a virus is not the cause," said a recent press release from NOAA and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Some wonder if radiation could be causing the skin sores and related problems, including ulcers on internal organs and abnormal growths on brains.

John Kelley, with the Institute of Marine Sciences at UAF, said he's just received a large batch of tissue from afflicted ringed seals and will soon begin the university's hunt for radiation as a possible cause.

Focus will turn to restoring areas damaged in the oil spill, which the coast guard says represents an important milestone

BP will officially be off the hook for any deposits of oil that wash up on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico – unless they can be traced directly to the Macondo well, it has emerged.Under a plan approved by the Coast Guard on 2 November, the oil company will end active cleanup operations and focus on restoring the areas damaged by last year's oil disaster.The plan, which was obtained by the Associated Press, sets out a protocol for determining which areas of the Gulf still need to be cleaned, and when BP's responsibility for that would end.

The plan "provides the mechanisms for ceasing active cleanup operations", AP said.It went on to suggest the biggest effort would be reserved for the most popular, heavily visited beaches. More oil would be tolerated on remote beaches. BP will be responsible for cleaning up thick oil in marshes – unless officials decide it is best to let nature do its work.The agency quoted coast guard officials saying the plan represented an important milestone in restoring the Gulf. BP has set aside about $1bn for restoration.The Obama administration has been indicating for some time that the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster, which began on 20 April 2010 with an explosion on board the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig that killed 11 workers, was moving into a second phase.Earlier on Tuesday, the US government rolled out a new five-year plan for selling offshore drilling leases.The proposal was a radically scaled back version of the president's earlier plans for offshore drilling – put forward just a few weeks before the Deepwater Horizon blowout – that would have opened up the Arctic and Atlantic coasts for drilling.

An unstoppable tide of radioactive trash and chemical waste from Fukushima is pushing ever closer to North America. An estimated 20 million tons of smashed timber, capsized boats and industrial wreckage is more than halfway across the ocean, based on sightings off Midway by a Russian ship's crew. Safe disposal of the solid waste will be monumental task, but the greater threat lies in the invisible chemical stew mixed with sea water.

This new triple disaster floating from northeast Japan is an unprecedented nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) contamination event. Radioactive isotopes cesium and strontium are by now in the marine food chain, moving up the bio-ladder from plankton to invertebrates like squid and then into fish like salmon and halibut. Sea animals are also exposed to the millions of tons of biological waste from pig farms and untreated sludge from tsunami-engulfed coast of Japan, transporting pathogens including the avian influenza virus, which is known to infect fish and turtles. The chemical contamination, either liquid or leached out of plastic and painted metal, will likely have the most immediate effects of harming human health and exterminating marine animals.

Many chemical compounds are volatile and can evaporate with water to form clouds, which will eventually precipitate as rainfall across Canada and the northern United States. The long-term threat extends far inland to the Rockies and beyond, affecting agriculture, rivers, reservoirs and, eventually, aquifers and well water.   Falsifying Oceanography

The day after the Obama administration rejected a proposal for the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline -- a move widely, if cautiously, applauded by environmental groups and advocates of renewable energy -- a new report highlights the destructive impact of fossil fuel consumption in the United States. The report, called Fueling Extinction: How Dirty Energy Drives Wildlife to the Brink, highlights the top 10 US species whose survival is most threatened by the development, extraction, transportation, and consumption of fossil fuels.

The report itself does not shy away from pointing its finger directly at the profit-driven aspect of the fossil fuel industry, nor its dependence on taxpayer-funded subsidies:

The animals (and one plant) highlighted by the group range from the relatively unknown and small Tan Riffleshell, a freshwater mussel found in only five rivers in the eastern US, to the large and majestic Bowhead Whale, believed to be among the oldest mammals on earth and the only whale that lives exclusively in arctic waters.  The other eight species examined in the report include: the Dunes Sagebrush Lizard, the Graham’s Penstemon (a wildflower), the Greater Sage Grouse, the Kemp’s Ridley Sea Turtle, the Kentucky Arrow Darter, the Spectacled Eider, the Whooping Crane, and the Wyoming Pocket Gopher. Receiving the 'activist's choice award' from the voting members was the Polar Bear, chosen because it was "the species they were most concerned about."

How does a court seize a nuclear plant? Well, that damn Russian floating nuclear plant is cursed. After a series of early setbacks, the plant, Akademik Lomonosov, is now close to completion. Too bad the shipyard building it is going to go bankrupt. The power plant had been planned to be used in the Arctic Ocean for some years now, but the Court of Arbitration of Saint Petersburg recently seized the floating nuclear power plant due to a request from Rosenergoatom, the state owned company that will operate the plant.

Rosenergoatom wanted the nuclear power plant in state control because United Industrial Corporation, the largest shareholder of Baltiysky Zavod, the shipyard building the plant, has given its stake in the shipyard to a bank as collateral for an unreturned loan. Basically, Rosenergoatom doesn't want another company claiming the shipyard's assets (i.e. the floating power plant) during the inevitable bankruptcy proceedings.

it's a terribly messy situation with a possibly shady cast of characters and a whole lot of money involved. Which means, this can go on forever. Surprisingly, the plant is still being built and is still set to fire up its first atom in 2012 but we're not sure who's going to end up running the thing. I just can't believe that this FLOATING NUCLEAR POWER PLANT has been taken over by guys in suits.

Sellafield could become a deadly weapon, capable of contaminating Irish people with cancer, warns Aine O'ConnorIN THE Eighties the world worried about the possibility of nuclear war. The deployment of nuclear weapons was at its height, relations between the superpowers at their worst. All things nuclear posed a threat and as a by-product, Sellafield became a household name.

We learned that the Irish Sea was the most radioactive in the world, that mutated fish had been found in it, that there were serious health concerns in Co Louth and that an accident at Sellafield would have serious repercussions for our health.

The Norwegian Government is also considering legal action since radioactive pollution from the plant has been found along the Norwegian coastline as far north as the Arctic.